The simplest way to ensure you don’t go over this limit is to eat mainly whole, unprocessed foods.

When you do buy packaged foods, scan the ingredients lists for sugar in its many guises – agave nectar, barley malt, fructose, corn syrup, maltose to name a few. The higher up on the list these sugars appear, the more sugar the product contains.

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Exercising for 30 minutes five times a week

Exercise is one of the best things you can do for your mental and physical health.

Not only does it keep you in shape and combat numerous chronic health conditions, it also makes life better overall, thanks to its positive impact on mood, mental alertness, self-esteem and sleep quality.

The national guidelines say we need 150 to 300 minutes (that’s 2.5 to 5 hours) of moderate-intensity physical activity or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous physical activity, each week.

You can break it up into shorter bursts of exercise, with the aim of being active most days.

Seven to nine hours sleep a night

Sleep requirements vary between people, but most adults need between seven to nine hours of shut-eye a night.

Finding your sleep sweet spot is easy – you know you’ve had sufficient slumber if you feel refreshed, productive and can function at your best the following day.

To make your shut-eye even more restorative, have a wind-down ritual in the hour before bedtime to ‘prime’ your body for sleep: turn off electronics, avoid watching anything overly stimulating on television and give yourself a chance to relax before bed.

Quality time with friends and loved ones

Yes, scrolling through Facebook is a fun way to keep up to speed with what your friends and family are doing – but it’s no substitute for the real rel="noopener noreferrer" thing.

Research suggests social connections are protective for our health, with one US study finding they improve our odds of survival by 50 per cent.

On the flipside, the study also suggests that a lack of social connectedness had an effect on mortality risk comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes as a day, and greater than obesity and physical inactivity.